DOCSLIB.ORG

PDF Generated By

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
PDF Generated By 6 The Golden Age of Piracy, 1714–​1727 The dawn circa 1714 hardly accorded with the recent peace many people trusted would quiet the seas forever. Their hopes were quickly dashed in the “breach of the treaty of Peace and Commerce.” Off on the horizon, warriors plundered the fishery with renewed intensity, abducting mariners, capturing ships, and torching stages. Trade ships also fell prey to the sea raiders who showed no discrimina- tion in their “Seizures made of divers[e] ‌Vessells.” As the victims staggered to re- gain their composure, an imposing man-​of-​war lumbered into view demanding answers from Indians but receiving only bold and plainspoken reminders of the proper order of things in this “their ancient possession,” of ascendancy and ac- quiescence, authority and deference. They declared that they will “no longer suffer any other nation to claim or enjoy usage of these lands,” that “ye Lands are theirs and they can make Warr and peace when they please,” and they did so an- imated by the lessons of recent loss. Elsewhere the self-​proclaimed rulers could be seen collecting duties from fishermen trawling their waters and from “every English trader” anchoring in their harbors.1 A decade later, onlookers would have taken in a wider panorama of vio- lence and new depths of despair. Sea raiders everywhere were hijacking “an in- finite number” of sloops, schooners, and shallops, many of which reappeared as warships “cruizing upon the Banks” to “infest” the fishery, like the “Extraordenar[il]y well fitted” schooner who “Takes all she Can Come up with.” Two of the vessels, converted into blazing infernos and launched with their “sails full,” crept toward a coastal garrison as others shelled the settlers and soldiers who took refuge inside. In every direction colonial crews were made “Prisoners,” captives impressed into service or whisked off to be sold for cash. These were the fortunate ones. Others met the end, their bodies abandoned to the deep as fellow crewmen—​now “Hostages”—​watched from the decks of their new floating prisons. In drifted a boat loaded with frightened vigilantes regretting their decision to set out in pursuit of their stolen property and people. Soon Storm of the Sea: Indians and Empires in the Atlantic’s Age of Sail. Matthew R. Bahar, Oxford University Press (2019). © Matthew R. Bahar. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190874247.003.0007 160 Storm of the Sea after spying an Indian rig on the horizon with its artillery trained on them, the volunteers came unhinged from the unremitting anxiety and quickly turned to flee, “afraid to engage them.”2 The people who watched this dawn would have also heard the familiar sounds of violence. The booming reports of “great guns,” the sharp crackle of “swivel guns,” the dull splintering of masts, the metallic clashing of “Cutlasses,” “Axes,” “knives,” and “hatchets,” the shredding sails, the waves. But most gripping would have been the human sounds, as “very bold” and “incensed” warriors bore down on their prizes with a “severe Command,” in the dictates of others who “Seiz,” “force,” “order,” and “command” their human spoils, in the threats of those who “demand money” as “Tribute” from fishermen and traders. They were bragging again, this time about how they aimed to “joyne more and go and Surprize the Governour and Garrison of Annapolis Royall.”3 The tone of prerogative and impunity taken in at this dawn was a stark contrast to the supplications for help that soon pierced the air. The “distressed people in Marblehead” who could not find a way out of their “Deplorable Surcomstances.” The “terrified” fishermen and their families at Canso who were just assaulted “in the dead of night.” They “suffered very Considerablie.” They were overcome with “cowardice and folly.” They were “so very uneasy” and “very backward.” From the left and right, near and far, the supplications for “emediate meas- ures,” “some speedy and effectual methods,” “all proper Methods,” echoed over the water and faded to silence as their authors waited for some sort of “relief,” anything. The broken remains of the fishing crews were again cowered together ashore, refusing to “go East of this place or scarce to sea.” Their abandonment of the fishery left it totally “impracticable.” Next to them were wives and children and mothers who looked to sea and contemplated the possibility that they will never see their men again and be forced into the growing ranks of “Widdows and fatherless.” No one could muster the nerve to venture out there and face the “Irruptions,” the “Attacks and Barbarities,” the “divers[e] barbarous acts of hos- tility,” the “Great and Many damages.”4 These parallel scenes frame Wabanakia’s longest, most intense, and most pro- ductive campaign of maritime violence to date. The era of ongoing conflict with the English, from the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 through the end of Father Rale’s War in 1727, forms the subject of this chapter. During these years Wabanaki adapted to and then manipulated the borderlands’ new geopolitics dictated by the Treaty of Utrecht by modernizing their diplomatic and military strategy for regional ascendancy. The process of modernization was threefold. In no uncer- tain terms, Indians applied their historic claim to sovereignty over sea and shore to the new postwar world while also amplifying their insistence on the tribu- tary status of English neighbors. As much as Europeans might wish to remap the region, Indians insisted on the right order of things. At the same time, they Golden Age of Piracy 161 detached their seaborne campaigning from wars rooted in the distant power circles of European courts, from conflicts touched off by imperial priorities that increasingly seemed arbitrary and unpredictable. The new face of Wabanaki’s hegemonic ambition was born of a desire to unfetter the political and economic fortunes of Native communities from those of Europe. The Treaty of Utrecht proved to Indians that something needed to change. Its concessions to English interests in the American northeast marked a jarring departure from the continuity and equilibrium maintained by the Treaty of Ryswick after the War of the League of Augsburg fifteen years earlier. At Utrecht, French and English diplomats dealt in Native territory as if they possessed mean- ingful authority over it, carving, trading, and claiming lands and subjects in the name of their kings. France ceded most of Acadia to England, after French aid to local Indians floundered throughout the war. Included in the deal was Port Royal, established over a hundred years earlier by Samuel de Champlain and the revered sagamore Membertou. England claimed it as Annapolis Royal, capital of their new colony, Nova Scotia. The sea change dealt a blow to Wabanaki interests as it undercut a century- long struggle to subjugate English colonialism along the confederacy’s southern frontier. That the setback arose in spite of the devastating achievements won by marine-warriors in the late war only further vexed Native leaders. The Treaty of Utrecht exposed the limitations of their nautical approach to establishing Dawnland dominion.5 What emerged as a revanchist commitment to control the territory of Nova Scotia soon engulfed much of the northeast in a maelstrom of seaborne violence as Indians assaulted English ships and sailors from Newfoundland to the Gulf of Maine. The raiding began on the fishing banks off Nova Scotia within a year of the Utrecht accord, but by the early 1720s warriors to the south were also taking to the sea to counter renewed pressure from New England. Tensions between encroaching colonists and native communities in southern Maine reached a fe- vered pitch when Massachusetts militia forces attacked a noncombatant village in search of its resident Jesuit priest in the spring of 1722, sparking a three- year war between New England and Wabanaki forces over territorial sovereignty and political authority. The outbreak of Father Rale’s War at Norridgewock galvanized Indians throughout the borderlands into a militarized community. Warriors from the Kennebec River in the southwest to Cape Breton Island in the northeast coordinated their naval campaigns to rein in defiant English subjects and reestablish the balance of power. The conflict revealed just how integrated the confederacy had become. The sea raids openly and deliberately defied the Treaty of Utrecht. Indians made clear that they were not beholden to agreements struck by foreign statesmen on the far side of the Atlantic. Nor would they wait idly for the next European war to arrive on their shores. Only they possessed the authority to 162 Storm of the Sea make violence and peace in the land of their ancestors. Henceforth, their quest for dominion over the northeast would be waged on their own terms. Wabanaki hegemony post- Utrecht took on a decidedly pecuniary edge. Throughout the 1710s and 1720s they stormed English ships and demanded monetary gifts, they abducted and commodified English mariners, and they sold their English prizes to French buyers for staggering cash sums. Money offered Indians what their now meager fur supply no longer could: flexibility, stability, and security. Unlike beaver hats in the promenades and salons of Europe, cash in currency- starved North America never went out of style.6 The increasingly high- stakes enterprise of sea raiding privileged native elites who could master the nautical skills and virtues valorized in Wabanaki communities. Headmen responded to the shifting needs of their constituents and the tenuous nature of their own authority by positioning themselves and their offspring at the cutting edge of economic change. On the contested waters of the northwest Atlantic able seamanship and naval prowess provided the surest route to a community’s material and social stability and, as a result, to the pres- tige and authority of their own bloodline.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Boundaries of Nationality in Mid-18Th Century Nova Scotia*
    GEOFFREY PLANK The Two Majors Cope: The Boundaries of Nationality in Mid-18th Century Nova Scotia* THE 1750S BEGAN OMINOUSLY IN Nova Scotia. In the spring of 1750 a company of French soldiers constructed a fort in a disputed border region on the northern side of the isthmus of Chignecto. The British built a semi-permanent camp only a few hundred yards away. The two armies faced each other nervously, close enough to smell each other's food. In 1754 a similar situation near the Ohio River led to an imperial war. But the empires were not yet ready for war in 1750, and the stand-off at Chignecto lasted five years. i In the early months of the crisis an incident occurred which illustrates many of *' the problems I want to discuss in this essay. On an autumn day in 1750, someone (the identity of this person remains in dispute) approached the British fort waving a white flag. The person wore a powdered wig and the uniform of a French officer. He carried a sword in a sheath by his side. Captain Edward Howe, the commander of the British garrison, responded to the white flag as an invitation to negotiations and went out to greet the man. Then someone, either the man with the flag or a person behind him, shot and killed Captain Howe. According to three near-contemporary accounts of these events, the man in the officer's uniform was not a Frenchman but a Micmac warrior in disguise. He put on the powdered wig and uniform in order to lure Howe out of his fort.
    [Show full text]
  • MOG Biography
    Dictionary of Canadian Biography MOG (Heracouansit, Warracansit, Warracunsit, Warrawcuset), a noted warrior, subchief, and orator of the Norridgewock (Caniba) division of the Abenakis, son of Mog, an Abenaki chief killed in 1677; b. c. 1663; killed 12 Aug. 1724 (O.S.) at Norridgewock (Narantsouak; now Old Point in south Madison, Me). In the La Chasse* census of 1708, Mog is listed under the name Heracouansit (in Abenaki, welákwansit, “one with small handsome heels”). During King William’s and Queen Anne’s Wars Mog took part in the numerous raids on English settlements by Abenakis and carried captives and scalps to Quebec. Following the peace of Utrecht in April 1713, Mog, Bomoseen, Moxus, Taxous, and other chiefs concluded a peace with New England at Portsmouth, N.H., on 11– 13 July. The Abenakis pledged allegiance to Anne, though “it is safe to say that they did not know what the words meant” (Parkman). They also admitted the right of the English to land occupied before the war. The English, on their side, promised that the Indians could settle any individual grievances with them in English courts. Mog and the others then sailed with six New England commissioners to Casco Bay, where the treaty and terms of submission were read to 30 chiefs, in the presence of 400 other Abenakis, on 18 July. “Young Mogg” was described as “a man about 50 years, a likely Magestick lookt Man who spake all was Said.” The Abenakis expressed surprise when told that the French had surrendered all the Abenaki lands to the English: “wee wonder how they would give it away without asking us, God having at first placed us there and They having nothing to do to give it away.” Father Sébastien RALE, the Jesuit missionary at Norridgewock, reported a month later that he had convinced the Indians the English were deceiving them with an ambiguous phrase, for England and France still disagreed about the limits of “Acadia.” Apparently the Indians remained disturbed, however, when the English offered to show them the official text of the European treaty in the presence of their missionaries.
    [Show full text]
  • Re-Membering Norridgewock Stories and Politics of a Place Multiple
    RE-MEMBERING NORRIDGEWOCK STORIES AND POLITICS OF A PLACE MULTIPLE A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Ashley Elizabeth Smith December 2017 © 2017 Ashley Elizabeth Smith RE-MEMBERING NORRIDGEWOCK STORIES AND POLITICS OF A PLACE MULTIPLE Ashley Elizabeth Smith, Ph. D. Cornell University 2017 This dissertation is an ethnography of place-making at Norridgewock, the site of a famous Wabanaki village in western Maine that was destroyed by a British militia in 1724. I examine how this site is variously enacted as a place of Wabanaki survivance and erasure and ask, how is it that a particular place with a particular history can be mobilized in different and even contradictory ways? I apply Annemarie Mol’s (2002) analytic concept of the body multiple to place to examine how utilize practices of storytelling, remembering, gathering, producing knowledge, and negotiating relationships to variously enact Norridgewock as a place multiple. I consider the multiple, overlapping, coexistent, and contradictory enactments of place and engagements with knowledge that shape place-worlds in settler colonial nation-states. Rather than taking these different enactments of place to be different perspectives on or versions of place, I examine how these enactments are embedded in and shaped by hierarchies of power and politics that produce enactments of place that are at times parallel and at times contradictory. Place-making is especially political in the context of settler colonialism, where indigenous places, histories, and peoples are erased in order to be replaced (Wolfe 2006; O’Brien 2010).
    [Show full text]
  • 4 the Maturing of Colonial Society
    NASH.7654.CP04.p112-153.vpdf 9/23/05 2:29 PM Page 112 CHAPTER 4 The Maturing of Colonial Society Joseph Beekman Smith, Wesley Chapel on John Street, New York City—1768 (detail), completed 1817–1844 (based on earlier sketches). (Joseph Beekman Smith, Wesley Chapel on John Street New York City-1768. Old John Street United Methodist Church) American Stories A Struggling Farmer’s Wife Finds True Religious Commitment In 1758, 37-year-old Hannah Cook Heaton stood trial for her refusal to attend her lo- cal congregationalist church. A resident of North New Haven, Connecticut, Hannah was required by Connecticut law to attend Sunday worship services—a law derived from the belief that religious uniformity was a social good. Hannah did not object to churchgoing; in fact, she was a fervent Christian. She had been a member of Isaac Stiles’s church—indeed, he had performed her marriage to Theophilus Heaton, Jr., in 1743. But later in that decade, after she had been caught up in the enthusiasm of the Great Awakening, a series of religious revivals that rocked New England in the 1740s, Hannah ceased to attend Sunday worship. Thereafter, finding that her minister’s preaching and church admission policies left her cold and dissatisfied, Heaton quit the church, arguing that Stiles had never himself undergone conversion and was therefore a “blind guide” leading his flock astray. Hannah’s decision to leave the village church was prompted by the preaching of men she believed were imbued with the spirit. Hearing touring evangelists George Whitefield, James Davenport, and Gilbert Tennant sparked a profound conversion ex- perience.As she later recorded in her diary, she “thought I see Jesus with the eyes of 112 NASH.7654.CP04.p112-153.vpdf 9/1/05 3:16 PM Page 113 CHAPTER OUTLINE my soul.” This religious transformation led her to join a small congregation headed by The North: A Land of Family Benjamin Beach, a lay preacher.
    [Show full text]
  • Forest Avenue and Stevens Avenue Portland, Maine Historic Context
    Forest Avenue and Stevens Avenue Portland, Maine Historic Context Scott T. Hanson Sutherland Conservation & Consulting August 2015 General context Development of Colonial Falmouth European settlement of the area that became the city of Portland, Maine, began with English settlers establishing homes on the islands of Casco Bay and on the peninsula known as Casco Neck in the early seventeenth century. As in much of Maine, early settlers were attracted by abundant natural resources, specifically fish and trees. Also like other early settlement efforts, those at Casco Bay and Casco Neck were tenuous and fitful, as British and French conflicts in Europe extended across the Atlantic to New England and both the French and their Native American allies frequently sought to limit British territorial claims in the lands between Massachusetts and Canada. Permanent settlement did not come to the area until the early eighteenth century and complete security against attacks from French and Native forces did not come until the fall of Quebec to the British in 1759. Until this historic event opened the interior to settlement in a significant way, the town on Casco Neck, named Falmouth, was primarily focused on the sea with minimal contact with the interior. Falmouth developed as a compact village in the vicinity of present day India Street. As it expanded, it grew primar- ily to the west along what would become Fore, Middle, and Congress streets. A second village developed at Stroudwater, several miles up the Fore River. Roads to the interior were limited and used primarily to move logs to the coast for sawing or use as ship’s masts.
    [Show full text]
  • The British Empire in the Atlantic: Nova Scotia, the Board of Trade, and the Evolution of Imperial Rule in the Mid-Eighteenth Century
    The British Empire in the Atlantic: Nova Scotia, the Board of Trade, and the Evolution of Imperial Rule in the Mid-Eighteenth Century by Thomas Hully Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the MA degree in History University of Ottawa © Thomas Hully, Ottawa, Canada, 2012 ii Abstract The British Empire in the Atlantic: Nova Scotia, the Board of Trade, and the Evolution of Imperial Rule in the Mid-Eighteenth Century Thomas Hully Dr. Richard Connors Submitted: May 2012 Despite considerable research on the British North American colonies and their political relationship with Britain before 1776, little is known about the administration of Nova Scotia from the perspective of Lord Halifax’s Board of Trade in London. The image that emerges from the literature is that Nova Scotia was of marginal importance to British officials, who neglected its administration. This study reintegrates Nova Scotia into the British Imperial historiography through the study of the “official mind,” to challenge this theory of neglect on three fronts: 1) civil government in Nova Scotia became an important issue during the War of the Austrian Succession; 2) The form of civil government created there after 1749 was an experiment in centralized colonial administration; 3) This experimental model of government was highly effective. This study adds nuance to our understanding of British attempts to centralize control over their overseas colonies before the American Revolution. iii Acknowledgments I would like to thank the Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program for providing the funding which made this dissertation possible, as well as the University of Ottawa’s Department of History for providing me with the experience of three Teaching Assistantships.
    [Show full text]
  • People of the Dawnland and the Enduring Pursuit of a Native Atlantic World
    UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE “THE SEA OF TROUBLE WE ARE SWIMMING IN”: PEOPLE OF THE DAWNLAND AND THE ENDURING PURSUIT OF A NATIVE ATLANTIC WORLD A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By MATTHEW R. BAHAR Norman, Oklahoma 2012 “THE SEA OF TROUBLE WE ARE SWIMMING IN”: PEOPLE OF THE DAWNLAND AND THE ENDURING PURSUIT OF A NATIVE ATLANTIC WORLD A DISSERTATION APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY BY ______________________________ Dr. Joshua A. Piker, Chair ______________________________ Dr. Catherine E. Kelly ______________________________ Dr. James S. Hart, Jr. ______________________________ Dr. Gary C. Anderson ______________________________ Dr. Karl H. Offen © Copyright by MATTHEW R. BAHAR 2012 All Rights Reserved. For Allison Acknowledgements Crafting this dissertation, like the overall experience of graduate school, occasionally left me adrift at sea. At other times it saw me stuck in the doldrums. Periodically I was tossed around by tempestuous waves. But two beacons always pointed me to quiet harbors where I gained valuable insights, developed new perspectives, and acquired new momentum. My advisor and mentor, Josh Piker, has been incredibly generous with his time, ideas, advice, and encouragement. His constructive critique of my thoughts, methodology, and writing (I never realized I was prone to so many split infinitives and unclear antecedents) was a tremendous help to a graduate student beginning his career. In more ways than he probably knows, he remains for me an exemplar of the professional historian I hope to become. And as a barbecue connoisseur, he is particularly worthy of deference and emulation.
    [Show full text]
  • The 1711 Expedition to Quebec: Politics and the Limitations
    THE 1711 EXPEDITION TO QUEBEC: POLITICS AND THE LIMITATIONS OF GLOBAL STRATEGY IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE ADAM JAMES LYONS A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of History School of History and Cultures College of Arts and Law University of Birmingham December 2010 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT To mark the 300th anniversary of the event in question, this thesis analyses the first British attempt to conquer the French colonial city of Quebec. The expedition was a product of the turbulent political environment that was evident towards the end of the reign of Queen Anne. Its failure has consequently proven to be detrimental to the reputations of the expedition‘s commanders, in particular Rear-Admiral Sir Hovenden Walker who was actually a competent and effective naval officer. True blame should lie with his political master, Secretary of State Henry St John, who ensured the expedition‘s failure by maintaining absolute control over it because of his obsession with keeping its objective a secret.
    [Show full text]
  • Butlers of the Mohawk Valley: Family Traditions and the Establishment of British Empire in Colonial New York
    Syracuse University SURFACE Dissertations - ALL SURFACE December 2015 Butlers of the Mohawk Valley: Family Traditions and the Establishment of British Empire in Colonial New York Judd David Olshan Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/etd Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Recommended Citation Olshan, Judd David, "Butlers of the Mohawk Valley: Family Traditions and the Establishment of British Empire in Colonial New York" (2015). Dissertations - ALL. 399. https://surface.syr.edu/etd/399 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the SURFACE at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations - ALL by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract: Butlers of the Mohawk Valley: Family Traditions and the Establishment of British Empire in Colonial New York Historians follow those tributaries of early American history and trace their converging currents as best they may in an immeasurable river of human experience. The Butlers were part of those British imperial currents that washed over mid Atlantic America for the better part of the eighteenth century. In particular their experience reinforces those studies that recognize the impact that the Anglo-Irish experience had on the British Imperial ethos in America. Understanding this ethos is as crucial to understanding early America as is the Calvinist ethos of the Massachusetts Puritan or the Republican ethos of English Wiggery. We don't merely suppose the Butlers are part of this tradition because their story begins with Walter Butler, a British soldier of the Imperial Wars in America.
    [Show full text]
  • Proquest Dissertations
    THE IMPACT OF ILE ROYALE ON NEW ENGLAND 1713 - 1763 by Donald F. Chard LtMAA.Ci A thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. in History UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA OTTAWA, CANADA, 1976 Chard, Ottawa, Canada, 1977 UMI Number: DC54008 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI® UMI Microform DC54008 Copyright 2011 by ProQuest LLC All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER TABLE OF CONTENTS i TABLES AND MAPS ii ABBREVIATIONS iii NOTE ON DATES iv INTRODUCTION vi I. CANSO, 1710-1721: FOCAL POINT OF NEW ENGLAND- ILE ROYALE RIVALRY 1 II. PATTERNS OF TRADE, 1720-1744 34 III. THE LOUISBOURG EXPEDITION OF 1745 67 IV. VICTORY AT LOUISBOURG: ECONOMIC EXPECTATIONS AND REALIZATIONS, 1745-1748 103 V. THE BITTER FRUITS OF VICTORY: MILITARY AND SOCIAL REPERCUSSIONS OF THE 1745 ASSAULT ON LOUISBOURG 139 VI. IMPERIAL SUBSIDIES AND CURRENCY ADJUTSMENTS.. 168 VII. NEW ENGLAND'S ROLE IN THE ESTABLISHMENT OF HALIFAX AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF NOVA SCOTIA 1749-1755 188 VIII.
    [Show full text]
  • Record of the Old Protestant Cemetery in Macau
    OLD PROTESTANT CEMETERY IN MACAU Cemetery opened 1821 Cemetery closed in 1858 The Old Protestant Cemetery close to the Casa Garden was established by the British East India Company in 1821 in Macau - in response to a lack of burial sites for Protestants in the Roman Catholic Portuguese Colony Macau was considered by the Portuguese to be sacred Roman Catholic ground and the authorities barred the burial of Protestants within its city walls whilst on the other side of the barrier gate the Chinese were equally as intolerant of the burial of foreigners in its soil This left the Protestant community of British, American and Northern European traders with the only option of a secret night-time burial in the land between the city walls and the barrier gate and the risk of confrontation with Chinese should they be discovered or worse - desecration of the grave once they had gone. The matter was finally resolved in 1821 after the death of Robert Morrison's wife Mary when the local committee of the East India Company voted to purchase a plot of land and resolve its legal status with the Portuguese such that the burial of Protestants would be permitted there Later the East India Company allowed burial of all foreigners and several graves were moved from other locations outside the city walls into the cemetery with people being reinterred from other burial places in the Macao Hillside thus explaining why some graves are dated before the Cemetery founding in 1821 Nationals of Britain, the United States of America, Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Germany
    [Show full text]
  • RIVERS, ENERGY, and the REMAKING of COLONIAL NEW ENGLAND by ZACHARY M
    FLOWING POWER: RIVERS, ENERGY, AND THE REMAKING OF COLONIAL NEW ENGLAND By ZACHARY M. BENNETT A dissertation submitted to the School of Graduate Studies Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in History Written under the direction of James Delbourgo And approved by New Brunswick, New Jersey May, 2019 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Flowing Power: Rivers, Energy, and the Remaking of Colonial New England by Zachary M. Bennett Dissertation Director: James Delbourgo This dissertation considers how river energy was a source of authority in colonial New England. The caloric, kinetic, and mechanical energy people derived from rivers was necessary for survival in New England’s forbidding environment. During the initial stages of colonization, both Europeans and Indians struggled to secure strategic positions on waterways because they were the only routes capable of accommodating trade from the coast to the interior. European and Native peoples came into conflict by the late seventeenth century as they overextended the resource base. Exerting dominion in the ensuing wars on New England’s frontiers was directly tied to securing strategic river spaces since the masters of these places determined the flow of communication and food for the surrounding territory. Following British military conquest, colonists aggressively dammed rivers to satisfy the energy demands of their growing population. These dams eviscerated fish runs, shunting access to waterpower away from Native Americans and yeoman farmers. The transformation of New England’s hydrology was a critical factor in the dispossession indigenous peoples before the Revolution and essential in laying the legal groundwork for the region’s industrial future.
    [Show full text]